Caples Jefferson Architects PC

Increasingly, we have been coming across the work of architects exploring this new reality. Sometimes the work is by architects like Teddy Cruz, compelled by their ethnicity to look beyond the mainstream; sometimes the work is a reframing, based on the concept of multiple cultures coexisting in the same frame, such as Herzog & de Meuron’s De Young Museum in San Francisco. These new architectural expressions of multiple cultures are not repudiations of modernism; they represe...nt an enrichment that ultimately might help create a more robust modernism, helping to rescue it from a ‘potato blight’ of too much sameness. Architects, like the Kanade brothers in Bangalore and Ilan Pivko in Israel, are creating fusions of treasured images and modern tectonics. As green architecture becomes increasingly important, examination of traditional strategies is helping to understand ways of working in harmony with natural forces. Creating a modern architecture that is broader in its intentions. Ultimately creating an architecture that values heterogeneity and the fantastic variety of the human creative. Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson, The New Mix: Architectural Design, 2005 Photo by Nic Lehoux

A rising group of practitioners is meeting the challenge of this broadening cultural landscape. Unsurprisingly, many of the architects exploring multiple cultures in architecture are, themselves, either constant travelers or immigrants, insider/outsiders. More than ever before in history, the new traveler-immigrant is not aspiring to replace one culture with another, but is, rather, pursuing strategies of quick switching, layering, reframing. Such strategies require knowledg...e, mental flexibility, and, occasionally, not a little humor. This issue showcases the work of a number of firms that have made multiplicity of perspectives a basal condition of their thinking. The new Multiculture demands strategies capable of dealing with contradictory impulses, openness to hybrids. Contrast, morphing, fusion are characteristic of an architecture which attempts to capture layered gestalts and to touch the cherished emotions of a broadened range of humanity. Working at the intersection of several cultures ourselves, we have been on the lookout for signs of this dynamic culture in architecture. Increasingly, we have been coming across the work of architects exploring this new reality. Sometimes the work is by architects like Teddy Cruz, compelled by their ethnicity to look beyond the mainstream; sometimes the work is a reframing, based on the concept of multiple cultures coexisting in the same frame, such as Herzog & de Meuron’s De Young Museum in San Francisco. Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson, The New Mix: Architectural Design, 2005

We are indeed at a present when many cultures embrace the concept of ‘modern’ as representative of themselves. We are at a time when the ‘native’ culture of most urban places is increasingly a mix, ethnically diverse, encompassing colors, flavors, dreamlike visions of many different origins. This dynamic condition is compelling many architects to consider ways of extending the compass of modernism to create an architecture truly representative of a wider range of humanity.... This condition is not always comfortable. Sometimes, especially in immigrant communities, the fact of cultural dynamism first manifests itself in modest signs only, appropriating the pre-existing context as a protective cloak. Sometimes, explosively embraced visions of the future lead to fantastic new creations of questionable taste. Yet the impulse to bridge cultures also leads to representative works treasured by their communities, and, at its best, to a vision of a hybrid art pointing to architecture’s future. Sara Caples and Everardo Jefferson, The New Mix: Architectural Design, 2005

In 2005, Sara and Everardo published an essay titled Mixology in The New Mix issue of Architectural Design. As we’ve revisited the piece, we’ve found that its ideas on culture and design speak strongly to the discussions we continue to have today. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be posting excerpts from the essay serially, with hopes to continue that conversation from 15 years ago.

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